By Miguel Rivera
The heavy rain that fell over the weekend on the city of Cancun, prevented Japanese boxer Motoki Sasaki from having his usual morning run, however, he decided to stretch his muscles at the "Kuchilan Ka'atun" gym, where he arrived with his team to get in some work. The Tokyo-born boxer has been preparing for two months for Saturday's fight with WBC lightweight champion Humberto Soto.
In the afternoon he held a minor training session. Because of the long Tokyo-Houston-Cancun flight, he had a light workout on Sunday with some fitness exercises, jumping rope, performing flexibility exercises, and then he spent more than 25 minutes shadow boxing and practicing his moves in the ring.
Sasaki has seen videos of Soto's fights and knows that he has a good punch, speed and defends well. He knows there will be a lot of pressure because he's fighting in the country of his adversary and the public will support "Zorrita" Soto.
Sasaki, who has 36 wins, including 23 by knockout, said he was eager to fight. He comes to perform at his best in the ring. The fight takes place in Cozumel, where Sasaki was once on vacation and said he liked the area but it's been eight years since he made that trip.
This will be the second time that Sasaki fights outside his country. The first was in Donetsk, Ukraine on October 3, 2009 when he lost a unanimous decision to Vyacheslav Senchenko, when he was trying to win the welterweight world title recognized by the World Boxing Association (WBA).